


155. neighborhood shadows

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [141]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: AGAIN. look. i'm sorry, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Gen, except i'm not at all and you can fight my werewolf-loving ass at ANY TIME. DAY OR NIGHT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 16:40:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8585947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “You didn’t hear shite,” Sarah corrects her. “Whole lotta stray dogs in this part of town.”“Wolves.”“Really big dogs.”“That look like wolves. And also are wearing my sweater.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> [warning: blood, sarah eats raw meat (gross)]

“You really gotta stop this shit,” says the woman sitting in Helena’s backyard and eating a plateful of raw meat. “Awful plan. Plus, you’re gonna bring in – dogs, and maggots and shit.”

“Hello, Sarah,” Helena says, sitting down on the edge of her porch and shivering in the dawn-cold. “How was your night. I heard you howling.”

“You didn’t hear _shite_ ,” Sarah corrects her. “Whole lotta stray dogs in this part of town.”

“Wolves.”

“Really big dogs.”

“That look like wolves. And also are wearing my sweater.”

“I know someone who’s good at gettin’ bloodstains out,” Sarah says absentmindedly. “It’ll be fine.”

Helena sticks her arms into her armpits for warmth and says nothing. She doesn’t care about the bloodstains. She cares about Sarah, who now has a sweater and a plate of food where before she had nothing. Sarah collapsed in the wreckage of Helena’s fence seven months ago, shivering and naked and bloody around the mouth. Sarah. Helena likes to think they’re friends, but she doesn’t know. Are you friends if your friend only shows up in your backyard, and only does that the morning after the full moon? Helena doesn’t have a lot of friends. She doesn’t know how friendship works.

In the space where these thoughts are there’s a silence, and Helena looks up to see Sarah staring at her. Her teeth are very sharp, but maybe that has nothing to do with what she does when the moon’s full. Maybe that’s just the way her mouth is shaped.

“Really,” Sarah says softly, “you don’t have to keep doing this.”

Helena shrugs. “It’s not my fault,” she says. “I leave the meat out for the dogs, because I like them, because since the dogs came to this neighborhood all the bad men are dead or gone. I don’t know why you keep eating it. Since you aren’t a dog.” She smiles a little bit.

Sarah’s gaze drops, and meets Helena’s again, and drops again. She absentmindedly picks up a chunk of raw meat, rips a bite out of it and swallows it. Her tongue swipes around her lips thoughtfully.

“Do you want it?” she asks.

Helena would ask what _it_ is, but she knows and she’s thought about it and – and – she’s thought about it. Running. Howling. Pack.

She shrugs. “You have a pack,” she says. “I hear them. You don’t need a pack. You need food and also sweaters. Where would you go, if I was with you? Who would keep you safe in the morning when the moon is gone and you are on two feet again?”

“That’s not an answer,” Sarah says. Her gaze is steady. When the moon is out her eyes are a bright hot gold, like stars, like other things you can’t touch. Right now her eyes are just brown. But they’re steady.

Helena sighs through her flapping lips. “Yes,” she says. “No. Maybe so. I don’t know.”

“Alright,” Sarah says. “Just wanted to ask.” She licks the edges of the plate, beautifully uncaring that Helena is there to see. The plate shines white when she’s done; her tongue is an unreal red. She yawns, jaw wide open.

“If you ever have an answer,” she says as her mouth closes. “Yes or no. Let me know, yeah?”

“Okay,” Helena says. Sarah stands up in an easy motion, crosses the backyard, hops onto Helena’s porch and squeezes her shoulder.

“Cheers,” she says. “See you in a month.”

“Less than a month,” Helena says.

“Yeah, alright, weirdo,” Sarah says. “Less than a month.” She opens Helena’s back door and lets herself into the house; she’ll cross through it, open the front door and vanish into the world outside. Helena doesn’t like to watch. She doesn’t want to see Sarah go.

She sits on the porch and raises her own hand to her shoulder. Sarah’s hand had been warm. Twenty-nine days until the next full moon.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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